“Espanglish” Officially Added to Spanish Dictionary

The word “espanglish” will appear in the next edition of the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, or DRAE, as an example of the contributions of Spanish-speakers in the United States to the Spanish language, the North American Academy of the Spanish Language said Tuesday.

The academy said that the DRAE has also agreed to incorporate for the first time the term “United-Statesism” to refer to words originated by Spanish-speakers in this country.

The 2014 edition of the DRAE will define espanglish as “a form of speech used by some Hispanic groups in the United States, in which they mix deformed elements of vocabulary and grammar from both Spanish and English.”

Academy director Gerardo Piña-Rosales said the fact that United-Statesisms appear in the DRAE for the first time represents a victory for his institution.

“By now I think we can refer to a Spanish of the United States,” academy director Gerardo Piña-Rosales said.

“This form of speech - which has nothing to do with so-called espanglish - is just one more dialect, neither better nor worse though without a doubt more complex than those used in Spanish-speaking countries,” he said.

According to the academy, the inclusion of U-Sisms in the DRAE “is an acknowledgment of the importance of the Spanish language in the United States, which according to the latest census is home to more than 50 million Hispanics.”

The North American organization is one of the 22 academies of the Spanish language that together publish the dictionary, rules of grammar and spelling, along with several other reference works.

Having determined that more than 90 percent of Spanish-speakers live in the Americas, the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language gathers contributions from all the academies to include in the dictionary.